On Tuesday, July 2, 2025, State Security once again crossed a line that should never be allowed: the arbitrary imprisonment of those who advocate for dialogue and democracy.
Raysa White
That day, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, Vice President of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), and Rolando Lovaina, President of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, were arrested while on their way to the U.S. Embassy in Havana to attend the reception for that country’s Independence Day.
What was their crime?
Was it accepting a diplomatic invitation? Attempting to engage in dialogue? Belonging to organizations that advocate for a peaceful, orderly transition to a pluralistic system? Are they not Cuban too?
None of these acts constitute a crime. On the contrary, they are civic gestures that should be honored in any nation that respects itself. Today it was announced that they have been released. That changes nothing. The harm has already been done.
By carrying out this arrest, the Cuban government is not only criminalizing dissent — it is declaring itself once again an enemy of understanding, unwilling to tolerate even the faintest glimmer of open conversation with its own citizens.
The people are no longer afraid
The Cuban people no longer fear. Fear no longer paralyzes them. The regime is mistaken.
What more can a people fear when they have already lost almost everything?
The system is exhausted. The repression, the blackouts, the institutional collapse, the desperate migration of its children… What more is needed to understand that this model is no longer viable?
The political experiment imposed over 60 years ago —with Soviet roots and tropical adaptations— has failed.
Cuba is not a laboratory
Cuba is not a test tube. It is not a theory. It is a land inhabited by human beings who feel, who dream, who suffer. It is a nation with the right to redefine its future — without repression, without paternalism, without punishment for thinking differently.
Today’s youth are unwilling to carry inherited guilt. They no longer want to be part of an endless experiment or live postponing their freedom in the name of a utopia that never comes.
To those within the system who still have a conscience
To those who remain in positions of power and still hold some moral clarity or compassionate instinct; to those who know this is unsustainable — we say: Call yourselves to account.
Do you not see the decay in the streets, the schools, the hospitals? Can you not hear the voices that can no longer be silenced? They are cries of desperation.
Open your ears. Break the sterile circle of obedience. The time has come to save what remains.
Stop condemning those who think differently to exile. Stop silencing with force what could be healed through understanding. Stop ruining a nation to sustain a fixed idea.
Open the doors. End the repression. Rebuild the country with capable people. Do not distort the natural laws of transition. Allow new intelligences and sensitivities to participate. Accept dissent as a legitimate form of patriotism. And let go of the arrogance that has done so much harm to our country.
Because the tree is withering. And yet we could still save it — if we give it air, if we open the soil, if we let others water it too.
Cuba does not need repression. Cuba needs hope. And that — hope — is a basic human right that can no longer be denied.
Have mercy.
Let’s give Cuba, at the very least, the right to hope.
Akerunoticias 